Health, life style, and safety concerns have produced an increasing demand for low alcoholic, non-alcoholic (less than 0.5% alcohol by volume), alcohol free (no alcohol), and low calorie (40 or fewer calories per 12 fluid ounces) malt beverages. However, the current processes for producing such beverages have numerous problems. Some processes can not be carried out in existing equipment and require large expenditures for new plant and equipment. Other processes are energy intensive. None of the processes produce a fermented malt beverage that has the physical and organoleptic attributes that are familiar to and desired by the consumer. These processes are discussed in R. Siebel, Brewers Digest, 13 (March, 1990).
Although malts produced for brewing beer are carefully made to contain the enzymes, extract and nitrogen necessary to perform well in the brewhouse, ferment well, and produce a fermented malt beverage that has the attributes desired by the consumer, such malts are not suited for producing a low or non-alcoholic malt beverage. Other specialty malts with more intense flavor are commercially available, but these are usually produced by using higher kiln finishing temperatures which result in a predominant caramel aroma and flavor in the finished product. Dextrine or crystal malt, for example, is made by heating high moisture green malt to a temperature range that favors amylolytic activity (60.degree.-75.degree. C.), holding such temperature for a time to liquefy and saccharify starch, then increasing the temperature to about 150.degree. C. to caramelize the resulting sugars. A need exists for a process for producing a fermented malt beverage: that (1) can be carried out in existing equipment; (2) requires little or no more energy than ordinary brewing; and (3) produces a product with physical and organoleptic attributes that are familiar to and desired by the consumer.
Sfat, U.S. Pat. No. 3,689,277, discloses a process for producing a malt flavor base for use in foodstuffs, particularly lower calorie beer. The process involves grinding a high protein content grain seed, such as high protein barley, followed by an aqueous enzymatic treatment to extract the protein preferentially from the grain as compared with carbohydrates. The starch content of the extract is hydrolyzed by treatment with amylolytic enzyme to provide starch-free solution which is mixed with sugar and dried by heating to impart a caramel flavor. Sfat, U.S. Pat. No. 3,711,292, discloses producing a concentrated protein hydrolysate substantially free of starch by heating a starchy proteinaceous cereal grain with an aqueous proteolytic enzyme to produce a solution containing soluble protein hydrolysis products together with a starchy carbohydrate fraction, separating the solution from undissolved residue, and treating the separated solution with amylolytic enzyme to produce a starch-free solution. The product is useful as a flavor precursor for beer or may be incorporated in a sugary fermentation wort to produce a beer low in unfermentable carbohydrates. Sfat, U.S. Pat. No. 3,717,471, discloses a low carbohydrate beer produced by subjecting barley malt to aqueous extraction conditions favorable to extraction of protein while unfavorable to the extraction of carbohydrate, adding a highly fermentable sugar to the resulting extract to produce a brewers wort low in unfermentable carbohydrates, and fermenting the resulting wort. Although these processes have certain advantages, they do not produce non-alcoholic, or alcohol free, low calorie malt beverages.